“So what if I woke up 5 minutes later today?”
”So what if I told my friends I would be there today and didn’t make it?”
”So what if I told my colleagues I’d show up on time for our breakfast meeting?”
So what? Aren’t these small decisions anyway? When I have to make a promise to Bill Gates or the Pope, I’ll stick to it. Why wouldn’t I? I wouldn’t muck up on a big decision.
We like drawing a line between small and big decisions so we can draw a line between the consequences of choosing the easy way versus the right way. Waking up 5 minutes late may have a knock on effect on everything you do while your friends and colleagues may just lose silently faith in your word.. but we tell ourselves that they don’t matter.
They do. There are 2 truths we must internalize to get this right.
First, there are no small and big decisions. There are just decisions and we always have a choice between what’s right and what’s easy. The right path will require us to plan, prepare, and then adapt while the easy path will be..well..easy.
Second, a day is a collection of many “small” decisions; a week, a month, and a year, are just a collection of days and thus, a life time is just a collection of years (if you are lucky).
That small decision you’re about to make matters a lot more than you’d like to admit. In fact, it’s probably the only thing that does.
A Learning a Day 